Dr. Christopher Bartel Assistant Professor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy and Religion Appalachian State University I. G. Greer Hall 114 Boone, NC  28608 828.262.7193 bartelcj AT appstate DOT edu Ph. D. (2007) King's College London M. A. (2000) University of Bristol B. M. (1997) Berklee College of Music   Links

             "Father, I will not fight you..."

AOS:  Analytic Aesthetics (especially Music), Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Perception (especially Sound).

AOC:  Metaethics, David Hume, Epistemology.

My research interests primarily lie within analytic aesthetics, perception and philosophy of mind.  Within the field of aesthetics, I am particularly interested in the philosophy of music -- the ontology of musical works, musical understanding, the relationship (or lack thereof) between music and language, and philosophy of musical perception.  Within the field of perception, I am particularly interested in examining the nature of auditory experience and developing an account of the representation of the contents of auditory experience. Perhaps controversially, I do not see a sharp distinction between my work in aesthetics and my work in perception.  In fact, I view these as basically the same field, but each having a focus on different (closely related) issues. 

My Ph.D. dissertation was on the perception of music, the mental representation of musical content and the possibility of demonstrating an empirical theory of musical understanding using contemporary research in the cognitive science of music and auditory perception.  It was jointly supervised by Anthony Savile and Keith Hossack at King's College London.

As a postgraduate student, I tutored in Aesthetics at King's College London and at University College London.  As a visiting lecturer, I taught a course on the Philosophy of Music at the University of the West of England, Bristol in the Spring semester of 2007.   I am currently teaching Introduction to Philosophy, Arts and Ideas, and Philosophy of Art and Beauty as well as a special topics course titled Perception, Color and Sound for the Fall 2008 semester in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University.  I am currently developing a course that is tenatively titled Philosophy of Music Perception and Cognition.

Publications

• ‘Conceptual Content and Aesthetic Perception’ (2006).  Analyses: Proceedings of the 2nd National Meeting for the Portuguese Society for Analytic Philosophy.  Porto, Portugal: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto.  299-306.

Book Reviews

• Review of Is Art Good for Us? Beliefs about High Culture in American Life, by Joli Jensen.  British Journal of Aesthetics, 2004, Vol. 44 (1): 93-96.
• Review of Art and Value, by George Dickie.  British Journal of Aesthetics, 2005, Vol. 45 (1): 94-96.
• Review of Listening to Popular Music, by Theodore Gracyk.  British Journal of Aesthetics, 2008, Vol. 48 (3): 357-359.
• Review of The Musical Representation, by Charles O. Nussbaum.  Philosophy in Review, 2008, Vol. 28 (3):  212-214.

Works in Progress

• "What is Wrong with Hypocrisy?" (currently under review)
• "Understanding Manipulative Performance Art " (currently under review)
• "Mediated Contents and the Representation of Musical Pitch"
• "Mind-Dependent Perceptual Contents"
• "Musical Understanding and Behavioural Competencies"